Gentle Wolves
by dangerousdame
Summary: A confrontation between the Courier, Vulpes and Boone written as a fairy tale. She had to deliver a package, and two killers led her off the path.
1. Chapter 1

_Alas! Who does not know that these gentle wolves are of all such creatures the most dangerous!"_ - Charles Perrault

She had a package to deliver, if she could only knew what it was. They'd sent her out to give it to someone important, and said not to get lost on the way. She remembered a man with a smooth voice taking it away from her, and she remembered the click of metal and the consuming darkness that followed it. The kind man who woke her said that her path would go to the city, so that's where she set off for.

She was a Courier. She was number six in a line. She'd been going to the house of an old man- her grandfather, perhaps. Or was House his name? Her memory hadn't been working well since that horrible night (or perhaps it had never worked well- it wasn't as if she would remember if it did.) Among the personal possessions they'd found her with, there were no records of a family, no pictures of loved ones, and no way back home- if there even was a home.

The only way to go was forward. To grandfather's house (or Grandfather House, or perhaps just to an old man of no relation to her at all.)

The path was marked on her map, and she told herself she wouldn't stray from it. They said there were monsters all over, things that would devour her whole if she went too far in the wrong direction. She had some small protection against them- a pretty girl with a bright smile had given her a rifle and showed her how to aim it- reminded her, rather. She could feel her hands moving into place by themselves, as if she'd done it a thousand times before she lost her memory.

"I know Doc and Victor told you the way to go," Sunny had said, "but are you sure you want to? It's a tough trip, especially for someone in your condition."

"The doctor told me I'm in better condition than he had any right to expect. I can tell my mind is running slower than it should and no amount of waiting to heal will fix that. It's sweet of you to worry about me, but I have to go where they told me. I'm the sixth courier, and I was supposed to make a delivery."

They waved her off with a small bag of food and best wishes. The mechanical man gave her a cheery cry of "So long, Red!" Maybe he was referring to her hair color, or to the way she'd been stained when he found her nearly dead.

Red was as good a name as any, though. At least it was more personal than Six.

On the road, Red found she was somewhat hardier than Sunny had given her credit for. Her eyes were quick, and if she had forgotten what monsters looked like, it was simple enough to shoot things that charged her. She could build a fire and forage for fruit, and could even read the discarded books that littered the floors of abandoned homes. She wasn't stupid after all- if she stuck to the path, she was sure she could find her way.

Of course, things became much less clear when she met the Wolf Man.

There was no one else with her when Red stumbled into the woods. It wasn't a forest of green leaves and shade; she didn't think those had existed for hundreds of years. Nevertheless, her walk was lined with trees, tall and sturdy and brown, a patch of forest in the middle of the desert.

The forest was called Nipton, and the trees were made of the dead and dying. Blood dripped from the branches as rainwater might after a storm, the branches formed from human arms. Birds perched on the branches- scavengers, snatching flesh while the tree itself writhed and moaned. Red stumbled and fell to the ground at the sight of them, and when she looked up she was staring into the eyes of wolves.

In her shock and horror, it was at first difficult to tell one wolf from the other, but her vision soon cleared. One beast was standing on four legs, a low growl threatening her from the back of its throat. The other wasn't really a wolf at all, just a man wearing the skin of one. If he hadn't been wearing sunglasses, she might have checked to see if his eyes glowed like those of his pet.

"This is a strange place for a little girl to visit. Did you have business in Nipton?" The Wolf Man's face flickered with the hint of a smile. "Family?"

"I just need to get through here, I have to deliver a package..." Red felt herself choking on the words, unsure if she should be talking to a man undisturbed by the death around him. His voice was calm and tranquil, though, and he reached out a hand to help her off the ground.

"Do not waste your pity on the men you see here. Criminals, degenerates. They would have happily raped you without a second thought, keeping you with them by underhanded means. Girls shouldn't walk alone through places like this."

"I'll be going, then-"

"You're not alone now, though." The Wolf Man gave her a wider smile. "Just where were you going?"

"The city. There's a house I have to reach. A house with an old man."

As they were talking, Red had failed to notice the placement of the Wolf Man's hand. He'd held her fingers when pulling her up, but his own fingers were now holding her, ever so gently, by the wrist. It was instinctual for him, the way a dog would rush at the smell of food. She did see his eyes, though- even through the sunglasses, she was close enough that she could see the outline.

What big eyes he had...

"I might suggest you take a different path. The main road leads through rough territory, unguarded as Legion roads are. I'll show you the way if you spread word of this place."

Red stammered a quick thank you, blushing for reasons she wasn't quite sure of. Then, again with little reason, she asked his name.

"Vulpes Inculta." She knew the name must have been Latin, with the V's pronounced as W's. Vulpes the Wolf Man.

Red must have known more than a little Latin at some point in her prior life, for as she walked in his suggested direction, his name came to mean something to her. Was it shaggy dog?

Wolves kill to eat, but dogs are trained. They kill for sport, as do so many trained animals. If Red could have seen the way Vulpes looked at her as she left, it would have occurred to her that they also sometimes play with their food.


	2. Chapter 2

Red had promised herself she wouldn't stray from her path, and twice she broke her promise for the sake of a man. The first time was for Vulpes the Wolf Man, who had sounded so reasonable, so gentle when he showed her the way to go. The second time was for the Hunter, who was not reasonable or gentle but who wanted her help, as much as he didn't want to admit it.

In the old days, towns had hunters who went out and found monsters. This town had hunters who waited for the monsters to invariably find them. One hunter brushed her off when she asked what was going on in the town (not rudely, but letting her know that he left his "ghoul problems" to people he trusted to know what they were doing.) The other hunter had a face like a hieroglyphic and a voice like gravel, without a trace of honey in his words.

"You shouldn't talk to strangers," he said when she first approached him.

"Everyone's a stranger to me. I won't pester you if you'd rather be alone..."

"No. Stay."

The Hunter didn't reach for her as Vulpes had, but his voice was far more urgent. When he asked her for a favor, her instinct was to refuse. She'd delayed too much already, she needed to head on straight ahead to the city. Instead, she agreed to help him. She helped him hunt, and after she'd watched an old woman organize her receipts at night, she helped him kill.

_Don't waste your mercy on her_, Vulpes would have said. The Hunter (who called himself Craig Boone) didn't tell her not to have mercy. She could have all she wanted, as long as it didn't get in the way.

Boone went back with her to her hotel room when she packed her bags.

"Thanks, kid. I guess I didn't get your name."

"Red."

"That's not a name."

"It's all I have right now." The exchange of names seemed a little late, considering they'd just committed a murder together (however justified.) It felt awkward, but at least he'd taken the time to ask, however belatedly.

"I can't really stay," she said, hoisting her backpack over her shoulder. "I have to get to the city."

"New Vegas?"

"There's someone there I have to find. Something bad happened to me, and I need to know why. I imagine you can understand that."

Boone nodded.

"Whoever gave you that bump on your head's got to be a piece of work. I'll be chasing the Legion now. Not much else to do."

"You could come with me. If you wanted. There's probably Legion near the city, and I'll be an extra pair of eyes."

Red heard silence in the room for a moment, but wasn't sure what it meant. She couldn't hear Boone thinking that she seemed like a nice girl, and maybe he owed her one. Or that it would be good to have someone to talk to now that Carla was gone and Manny had shown his true colors. Or that if he followed her and talked with her he might start to like her, and if whatever higher power was fucking with him decided to hurt her for it, it would be his fault.

All Red heard was a pause, followed by Boone shaking his head.

"Alright. Can I keep the hat?"

"Sure. It suits you."

It would be wrong to say that Red felt hurt by Boone turning down her offer, but she was disappointed. He hadn't bothered to give her an excuse, or to try to be nice about it. Now as she walked into the desert night, her thoughts would drift to two men, one soft and self-assured, the other harsh and distant. _Nice is different than good_- she'd heard that in a song once, but of course she couldn't remember what the song was.

Approximately two hours after Red left, Boone was sitting in his own hotel room thinking about her. Back when he was a soldier, he'd fallen for the damsel in distress routine on a fairly regular basis, getting fucked or fucked over by a pretty girl without anyone else to help her. Part of the reason he'd fallen for Carla was that she hadn't played it like that, and that as tactless as she could be, it meant she was never trying to trick him. "Red" or whatever the fuck her name was might be what she claimed, an amnesiac in over her head (amnesia, such a ridiculous excuse.) More likely, she was either another grifter or an idiot. No one who helped kill old ladies was too sweet or too innocent to survive New Vegas.

Approximately one hour after he had that thought, Boone pulled on his coat. "Christ, they'll eat her alive," he muttered as he headed out after her trail.


	3. Chapter 3

Red tried her best to make the rest of her trip to the city as straightforward as possible. She stopped when she had to rest, fired shots at raiders when she saw them attacking others, and scavenged and traded her way to a better gun and a stockpile of caps. What she wouldn't do was wander off, or get any more lost than she already was.

Sometimes Red wondered if she'd been foolish to take the route Vulpes had told her about. After she'd heard Boone tell stories of wicked Legionaries, she'd worried that the man in wolf skin had been leading her into a trap. If he had, though, he didn't spring it on her during her travels. What he'd said about roads leading to Legion territory was true- they were well-guarded against bandits, and with caravans passing to and from their territory, Legionaries themselves didn't harass passersby.

She wasn't sure how long the trip to the city was supposed to take, so Red couldn't say whether Vulpes had really spared her any travel time. The road got her to her destination, though, whether it was sooner or later.

The lights of the city were so bright as to be nearly oppressive, but Red couldn't help gaping in delight. It was a city of handsome men and beautiful women, where everyone wore fine clothes and signs flashed with immoral delights. She'd been delivering something to this place- what could there possibly be that this place didn't have?

The only real problem, of course, was how to find one old man in a city this big. She knew he had a house to himself, but there were no houses here- only apartment buildings, hotels and casinos. Red might have spent the whole night wandering about the town with no idea where to look if it weren't for the return of the mechanical man.

Mister House was waiting for her, he said. So House was the name, after all. He owned a building all to himself, old and solitary as grandfathers often were. Not her grandfather, though- just a man who wanted her to deliver a package. A man who could tell her what it was and how to find it again.

Red stepped into the elevator, her journey finally nearing the end. The building was grand, but who knew how old- she could not know that it was well-maintained, and the lights were not supposed to flicker. She could not know that the whir in the robot's voice was not supposed to sputter.

And she certainly couldn't know that the elevator wasn't supposed to take her straight to the Presidential suite.

The lights were dim in the bedroom, allowing Red to see only the outlines of the furniture. Even so, she could tell it was the grandest room she'd ever been in (and would bet that she didn't have a hidden memory of one grander.) After all her weary traveling, she wanted nothing more than to lie down on the bed, sinking into what must have been the softest mattress in the remaining world. Instead, she cleared her throat and stepped softly in.

"Mr. House? I'm the courier you hired. Victor says you're waiting for me."

The figure on the bed (it must have been Mr. House) had his head turned towards the window. He wore a suit rather than nightclothes; well, she'd imagined he must be eccentric. When he spoke, he seemed to address his words to someone out the window rather than her; what she heard from him was a sweet but barely audible murmur.

"I have waited for you. Come closer, my dear."

Red stepped forward, hoping her muddy shoes didn't ruin the man's pristine floor. The man's silhouette became clearer, and she felt a slight surprise; he wasn't bent or wizened as she'd imagined, but seemed to be a young man.

"If you don't mind my saying so, Mr. House, you're not as old as I heard."

"And a good thing I'm not. You seem to be young enough not to have learned tact." He spoke with amusement in his voice, but Red blushed anyway.

"I'm sorry. I've been on the road so long, I must be behaving like an animal."

The man beckoned her on, and Red obeyed. She ought to have been asking questions about her package, about who she was and what he wanted from her, but the sheer opulence of the man's home intimidated her. He was rich and powerful, and she was just a courier, whatever else she might once have been. Besides, he'd been polite to her when she'd been rude about his age. She didn't want to embarrass herself any further in front of such a gentleman.

Red's eyes were becoming accustomed to the dark by the time she reached the bed. The man was certainly young, though his hat was tilted down too far over his face for her to tell how young. When he finally looked up, he gave her a smile; in the moment she recognized him, Red could only blurt out what she'd thought that day in Nipton.

"My, what big eyes you have..."

With that, Vulpes had one hand upon her wrist again. This time, he was pointing a gun at her with the other.


	4. Chapter 4

"Perhaps you're hungry after a long day's walk," said Vulpes with a smile. He gestured toward a fine china place with a half-finished meal. "Sweet veal, far out of your price range at the Ulta-Luxe. Go on, have some."

Red shook her head silently. Somehow, seeing the face of her wolf man had drained her of all appetite.

"Ah, well. Let it not be said that I didn't try diplomacy." Vulpes' smile had only grown wider, the smile of a predator with more than food on its mind. "I would like to know where the chip is. You can make this easy on yourself."

So it was a chip she was meant to deliver- presumably a computer chip, rather than one for gambling. Red would have gladly told him she didn't have it, didn't even know what he was talking about, but it occurred to her that seeming to possess something valuable might be the only thing keeping her alive.

"I won't tell you."

"I was afraid you'd say that." The way Vulpes said it, though, Red was sure he hadn't been 'afraid'- her refusal had been something he was looking forward to. "In that case, I'll have to search you."

"Search me?"

"You will undress for me, and I will examine each item of your clothing for the chip. Do this, or I will rip your clothes off bodily. I assure you, I can make the latter very painful."

Trying not to tremble, Red began to do as she was told. She unbuttoned her coat and let it fall to the floor, making Vulpes have to reach for it. Once he'd satisfied himself that the pockets were empty, he nodded for her to proceed.

Red hesitated before removing her coarse overshirt. She still had a filmy undershirt beneath it, but every item of clothing she removed made it harder to hide her shivering. Vulpes snatched the shirt from her hands, though his eyes weren't on it; he seemed less interested in examining her clothes than in examining her barely clothed body.

"Why are you stopping, my dear?"

"I've just got the shirt and pants. You can see they don't have pockets. There's nowhere I could be hiding the chip."

"I'll be the judge of that."

He was really going to make her do this. Red was sure it wasn't her first time undressing her in front of a man (the doctor back in Goodsprings had surely seen more of her than a husband had the right to expect on his wedding night,) but the hungry look in Vulpes' eyes mixed with the gentle tone of his voice made her feel like a helpless virgin. Red had to bight her tongue to keep from saying no; she believed him when he said he could make ripping off her clothes deeply uncomfortable.

Silently, Red pulled her undershirt over her head and tossed it aside. Her breasts were bare for him now, and the look of hunger in his eyes had changed to satisfaction, as if inspecting her for purchase. The longer she hesitated, the worse his look became. Wanting to get it over with, Red roughly kicked off her boots and pulled off her pants, tossing her white panties beside them on the floor.

Vulpes looked her up and down appreciatively; if he really were a wolf, he'd have been licking his lips. Red realized she was still wearing her hat, the red one Boone had let her keep. She could have been hiding a chip under that, but Vulpes seemed entirely uninterested.

"Come here, dear. Join me on the bed."

Red didn't think she could make it three steps without falling down, but she somehow managed it. The bed was indeed as soft as she'd imagined, but she wouldn't have noticed if it had been hard as a rock. Still pointing his gun at her, Vulpes ran a hand over her bare thigh.

"Are you afraid of me? Afraid I'll kill you after you tell me what I want to know?"

Ever so gently, Vulpes pushed her back down to the mattress, situating himself so he was straddling her.

"You shouldn't be afraid. I have no intention of...wasting such valuable material."

Vulpes leaned down and kissed her neck, softly, as if he was a schoolboy rather than a wolf. Red closed her eyes and let out a whimper, preparing herself for what she could tell was about to come.

Vulpes was interrupted, however, by the blaring of an alarm.

"I should have known that woman's devices wouldn't keep the security down forever," he growled. He didn't sound so gentle when he was angry, but that was almost a relief. "You'll be going for a trip with me, now. We'll see what Caesar wants done with you, or whether he cares what I do."

Red tried to stand up, but he pushed her back down again.

"No need for you to try to move. You'll be travelling like Cleopatra."

He tossed something over her, a carpet or a blanket perhaps. Red just had time to realize it was a wolf pelt when she felt his hands through it, pressing on her neck and making the world go black.


	5. Chapter 5

How long Boone had been walking across the desert, he couldn't say. The red-headed courier had called him a hunter, and it wasn't a bad description, but he was still no tracker. After he lost Red's trail in the darkness, he did the only thing he could think to do- give up trying and just head straight for New Vegas. He'd do his best to seek her out there, if she hadn't died on the way.

You can't have much of a connection with someone after only one night, Boone thought. Well, maybe that wasn't strictly true. He knew army boys who had one night stands and then fell so hard for their party girl they sought her out for a proposal. Murder is a different kind of intimacy than sex, of course, but not so very different.

She was someone to talk to. Someone he owed a favor. Whatever kind of trouble he got her into, it couldn't be much worse than what she'd be facing anyway. Part of him didn't even expect to find her, but it felt good to have a new goal after all this time. A reason to stay alive after he'd gotten his revenge.

Maybe she was still wearing the red hat. That would make it easier to find her in a crowd.

Once he reached the city, though, he knew there was no way of finding her. He didn't want to walk the streets and face bad memories, so he retreated to the Old Mormon Fort instead. He remembered it as a place of shelter; if Red had run into any trouble, it might not be a bad place to look for her.

A woman was crying there, and Boone felt his body tense at the sound. It wasn't her, though, just a woman shouting at her friends (who called her Emily) about having done something terrible. About having been tricked by a man into thinking he was a courier, and how she didn't know what he'd done with the real one. He could have been anything- a terrorist, a gangster. Maybe even a Legion spy, for all she knew.

Boone had always intended to die making a rush on Cesar's camp. He felt somehow comforted by that thought as he picked up his things and headed back out of New Vegas, along a path he knew lead to the Legion's docks. Maybe Red hadn't been attacked at all, or maybe it had been by someone outside the red-skirted freakshow, or maybe it was too late to help her at all, even if she had been.

Thinking back the night of Jeannie's death and Red's departure, he knew he owed it to Red to at least try. Maybe he owed it to himself, too.

When Red regained consciousness, the world was still dark. She tried to move her arms and feel about in the darkness, but there was no room for them to budge. When she tried to shout, the darkness around her stifled her cries. For one crazed minute, she thought she must have been in the belly of an animal, swallowed down whole.

Once her panic had subsided, she remembered the blanket of wolf skins Vulpes had thrown over her. He must have wrapped her up in it, confident that it would let in enough air for her to survive the trip to his camp (or else not caring if she was a corpse by the time he unwrapped her.) Was she on the back of a beast of burden, or was he carrying her himself? He didn't look strong enough- but then, he didn't look like a lot of things.

The darkness and close quarters were worse than the gun that had been pointed at her before. Taking deep, slow breaths, red tried not to let her situation remind her of a shallow grave, or being buried unconscious but alive. Instead, she tried to think about wolves. Had Vulpes skinned the ones with him at Nipton, or had he hunted down wild ones? He had to kill something to get his hat, in addition to the blankets. The whole situation was so absurd that Red almost smiled.

How long could it take to get to Caesar's camp, and how long had they been traveling already? Breathing slowly wasn't easy for her, and Red had half a mind to pass out again. It wold mean she didn't feel herself in the belly of a wolf anymore, even if she was in the arms of one. However she was being carried, it remained easy to feel herself inside a creature loping on all fours, waiting for consciousness to leave her forever.

Just as Red felt herself start to cry, she felt a sudden thump throughout her body. She'd been dumped on the ground, or dropped- perhaps that meant she wold be untied? No, she remained bound up in wolf pelts, but she finally heard noises from the world around her, muffled and indistinct. Nonetheless, she could recognize gunshots, even from within wolf skin.

Some sort of battle had disturbed their journey.


	6. Chapter 6

Boone almost never chose to use his knife rather than his rifle; war wasn't meant to be a fair contest, and there was no point in handicapping oneself. In this case, though, while he used his scope to look for solitary Legionaries or men dragging along prisoners, he kept his machete by his side in an easy to access spot. If she wasn't visible to his eye, he'd have to beat her location out of his prey, and a blown-off head wouldn't let him do that.

The Follower woman's description of the false courier wasn't much to go on- handsome and slim, in a business suit. There were any number of men who looked like that in New Vegas- but then, there wouldn't be many who looked like it in the desert, on their way to Caesar's fort.

He saw no one with prisoners, nor anyone in Legion red. All he saw on his journey were the occasional merchant (none of them clean or handsome) and one lone traveler. Boone followed the traveler from a distance, keeping an eye on him. He might have been a merchant as well, for he led an animal with a large bundle tied to its back. He was better dressed than the other merchants, though, so he was at least something to go on.

Through his scope, Boone saw the man's face was indeed handsome. He might not have been the best person to ask about a man's attractiveness, but at least he could see the traveler bore no scars or disfigurements. It was odd that he traveled alone, without a caravan- if he truly was a merchant, he would most likely have had an armed guard to protect him from bandits (even if bandits were rare on Legion roads.)

For what seemed like the longest time, Boone followed him to what seemed no purpose. At last the man sat down, weary from the journey, and took out a small pack. Dressed in a suit, the desert sun must have been unusually hot, and he pulled out a small leather canteen.

That wasn't all he pulled out, though. Also in his bag were a few items he laid aside, including what looked like a had made from the head of a wolf.

Despite his intentions of using non-lethal attacks, Boone couldn't stop his trigger finger.

The shot was a rare miss, but caught the man's attention. There was no time to lose- Boone threw himself at the Legion spy, forgetting momentarily about both his weapons. All he wanted to use were his fists, and in a flash he had hold of the man's head and was slamming it to the ground.

"Where- is -she?!" He punctuated each word with a slam, barely cognizant of the fact that his actions were making it hard for his target to speak. The spy made a sound, but it wasn't a name- it seemed to be a curse or a grunt of defiance. Boone growled in response, and grabbed a rock from the ground.

"I'll make you swallow this, you son of a bitch! Tell me where she is!"

"Too late...degenerate...I got there first..."

Boone wasn't sure what the spy meant by that- whether he'd killed Red or fucked her- but the sick grin on the spy's broken face was enough to merit death. Boone reached for his machete just in time to avoid a blade the spy had hidden on himself. He was surprisingly agile for a man with teeth coming loose, but Boone managed to be faster. He plunged the machete into the spy's heart, over and over until he could see straight again.

Maybe the spy was dead- maybe he could have been saved if there had been anyone around to help him. He'd stopped moving, at least, and that was enough for Boone. Too bad he hadn't gotten any information out of him, but with any luck there would be some indication of what he'd done with his prey hidden in the spy's belongings. The biggest one was made of wolf pelts, and for a second, Boone thought he saw it move.

When he cut the pelts open, Red was inside, gasping. Boone was so stunned that the fact of her naked body (save for the red beret) barely even crossed his mind. He didn't even push her away when she jumped up and kissed him in gratitude. All Boone did was hold her close and thank god that just once, no matter what the spy had said, he'd gotten there in time to save a girl from the wolves.


End file.
